Rabbi Ephraim Birnbaum, the applicant for the Orthodox girls' high school, testifies before the Jackson zoning board at the first hearing in October.

The 500 or so Jackson residents who turned out at last week's zoning board meeting hoping a verdict would be rendered on a variance request that would allow construction of an Orthodox girls' high school in a residential zone went away sorely disappointed.

The first hearing on the application was held in October. A fifth and final hearing, which will culminate with a board vote, won't be held until June 18.

What will the board decide? I'm laying odds that the variance will be denied. But I also had Syracuse, bounced in the second round of the NCAA basketball tourney, making it to the Final Four.

For a more informed opinion, I asked Ron Gasiorowski, the attorney representing homeowner Barbara Orsini, who is challenging the application, what his gut was telling him. He was noncommittal, other than to say he thought he had presented a strong case. And this, "They (the board) are the conscience of the community and must apply the law."

If the board reacts as the conscience of the community, it should be a slam dunk. The overwhelming majority of Jackson residents don't want the school. But the law is another matter, one that will require interpretation by the seven zoning board members, and ultimately, no doubt, by the courts. In the end, the law and the merits of the application, not community sentiment, will prevail.

Most of the people who turned out for the hearings - more than 1,000 at the second hearing in February - were not from the neighborhood in which the school is proposed. The school's potential impacts on traffic, water quality and other environmental concerns were not foremost in their minds. They were there for a different reason: concern that Lakewood's explosive growth, and its attendant problems, will eventually spill over into Jackson. The proposed school site is only 300 yards from the Lakewood boundary.

At Wednesday's hearing, I asked a woman sitting in front of me whether she lived in the neighborhood where the school was proposed. She said no. So why would she choose to spend her evening listening to often tedious testimony instead of relaxing at home, watching "American Idol" or "Modern Family"?

She said he had moved from Lakewood to Jackson about 20 years ago, and "I didn't like what I was seeing in Lakewood." The traffic. The congestion. The deterioration of the public schools. The worsening quality of life. She, like many of the others who have sat through the long hearings, is fearful that the quiet, suburban, middle-class town could, over time, turn into another Lakewood.

It would be foolish to say those fears are ill-founded. Lakewood's population has more than doubled in the past 20 years. During the past decade, it has accounted for nearly half of Ocean County's growth. And its master plan projects an acceleration of that growth over the next two decades.

The township anticipates adding 5,000 people per year - more than the populations of Lakehurst, Seaside Park, Bay Head and Island Heights combined - to grow from the current 92,843 (2010 census) to a staggering 220,000 by 2030. It begs the question: How will Lakewood be able to accommodate the anticipated tens of thousands of additional schoolchildren in the future if it already is turning to Jackson to house 400 of its high school students?

According to Lakewood housing projections, one of the highest growth areas will be the Cross Street/Prospect Street core, which is continguous to the neighborhood in which the Orthodox girls school is proposed.

It is important to note that Lakewood's growth and any problems stemming from it are totally irrelevant to consideration of the variance request for the high school. Yet for many Jackson residents, this application is about drawing a line in the sand. Many residents have taken to the microphone and implored zoning board members to represent their best interests, emphasizing that the school, should it be approved, not only won't benefit Jackson residents, but will impose additional burdens on its services and remove the property from the tax roles.

For the overwhelming majority of people I have spoken to in town and to the dozens who commented during the hearings, anti-Semitism is not a factor in their opposition, as a handful of people have suggested. Rather, it's concern, and sometimes resentment, that a group with different cultural norms, one that is largely self-segregated, often plays by its own set of rules and is deaf to the legitimate concerns of its Jackson neighbors.

That may be. But when it comes to zoning, none of that matters. It is a reality Jackson residents may have to get used to.

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BERGMANN: Jackson zoning law will trump community opposition to Orthodox high school

If the board reacts as the conscience of the community, it should be a slam dunk. The overwhelming majority of Jackson residents don?t want the school. But the law is another matter, one that will

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